A Clockwork Orange by Anthony BurgessAnthony Burgess is a very strange author. He had a really strange vision of the future. I think he did a great job describing his point of view. Anthony Burgess is not only a novelist, he has also written several plays and even composed a few symphonies. He was born in 1917 and died in 1991. He first published "A Clockwork Orange" in the United States in 1962 and initially contained 20 chapters, one less than he had written. The version I read was reprinted in 1986 with this latest, 21st chapter. The main character, Alex, and his three friends believed themselves to be indestructible. All they did every night was fight, drink and steal. One night, his friends sold him out and beat him, leaving him to be arrested by the police. Alex was wanted for many crimes he had committed, but they had never arrested him before. After 2 years in prison, they gave Alex the opportunity to undergo experimental treatment to get him out of prison early. The treatment consisted of injecting Alex with drugs and showing him movies of bad things to make him sick when he thought about committing illegal crimes. They released him after treatment, but he was beaten even more by his former enemies. He was sent back to the hospital, they realized what they did was wrong and they got him back to normal. The time period in which the book was written is 2010, which was very far in the future in 1962. The author must have thought that the world would have changed much more than it did because the world on which he wrote is very different from what it actually is and will be by 2010. Burgess wrote this book in futuristic language that he thought would fit the time period. The book was quite difficult to understand at first because of this, but by using context clues it became easier after the first chapter..